ART 3504/4514/4544/5604 · FALL 2026 · SYLLABUS
SOUND ART: MEDIUM AND MATERIAL
Les Duffield · Associate Professor · Creative Technologies
duffles@vt.edu
T/TR · 3:30–5:35 PM · LIBR 120 · DAAS LAB
This Course Is
A COMMUNITY
This class is a sound circle. We literally sit in a circle in most classes.
Ritual happens here.
Your total attention, commitment, and presence are required. Be present.
MAKING INTERESTING THINGS.
You will make 3 creative responses as you identify and deepen your relationship with sound.
VIBRATION.
The medium we study, converse about, and make, including the sounds too high or low for us to hear. This bandwidth requires creative context.
ATMOSPHERES.
Sound cannot travel without an atmosphere. Acoustics dictate the direction sound travels. This is where we talk about acoustics and physics.
SPACE.
The material surfaces, acoustics, objects, people, and other ephemera and intangibles that reflect, perceive, or generate sound. We activate space through our agency and presence.
OBSERVATION.
... consists of listening and awareness.
Both will be actively developed over the next 16 weeks.
MEASUREMENT.
Time. Frequency. Amplitude. Data. Form. Compression.
PSEUDO-SCIENCE.
We need to know some.
Avoid 'knowing' too much.
ELECTRONICS.
Making things to understand the reproduction of sound in an embodied way. Solder. Breadboards. DIY.
THE DIGITAL
File types, DAWs.
HISTORIES AND FIGURES
You will hear a lot about John Cage, Brian Eno, and Pauline Oliveros. You will know Fluxus.
Appreciating musique concrete will change you.
NOISE.
ACTIVE LISTENING
Open your ears more every day.
Do not stop until it is over.
SITE SPECIFICITY
Every place has its own sonic fingerprint, opening up conversations about place. We will talk about site specificity as an essential part of sound practice.
Catalog Description
Students explore sound as both medium and material through listening, recording, editing, and hands-on work with audio hardware, software, and simple electronics. Construction of sound-based art objects; studio investigation of sound; use of listening to understand how sound contributes to meaning and form in artworks. Design Lab Studio.
Required Materials
You will need access to the following throughout the semester.
Headphones
Wired headphones with a 3.5 mm (1/8") connector. Over-ear headphones are recommended. Bluetooth-only headphones will not work for much of what we do.
Storage
A portable USB drive or external SSD with enough space for uncompressed audio files. 32 GB minimum. 64 GB or larger recommended.
Sketchbook / Notebook
Something analog. Paper. Use it for listening notes, sketches, diagrams, observations, scores, plans, and other evidence that you were paying attention.
Basic Making Materials
Some projects may require inexpensive materials specific to what you choose to make. Specialized electronics and materials used in required workshops will be provided.
Computer + Software
University computers and required software will be available to you. You are not required to purchase a DAW or other specialized software for this course.
Do not buy electronic components or specialized audio equipment in advance.
Prerequisites
ART 1604 Principles of 4D.
1604 gets your hands and ears warmed up — the looking, listening, and time-based thinking this course assumes you already have. Here, you go all the way in, with sound as the only material.
The Stack
This is a stacked course containing students at different stages of undergraduate and graduate study. We share the same sound circle, technical foundations, workshops, field experiences, and creative propositions.
Expectations increase with level. Upper-level and graduate students are expected to demonstrate greater independence, technical intentionality, research depth, critical contextualization, and contribution to the intellectual life of the sound circle.
Graduate students will additionally contribute to the course through independent research and occasional facilitation of discussions, listening experiences, demonstrations, or other activities related to their developing practices.
Learning Objectives
- Identify how choices in presenting sound affect how an artwork is understood.
- Describe the qualities of sound in artworks.
- Construct simple audio devices to understand how basic circuitry produces sound.
- Create digital audio files by recording and converting analog sound.
- Operate a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to edit and mix multitrack audio.
- Prepare sound works for exhibition by considering space and presentation needs.
- Identify and solve basic technical problems with sound equipment.
Topic Syllabus
| TOPIC | % |
|---|---|
| Listening and sound analysis | 10% |
| Representing sound through visual or spatial forms | 10% |
| Building simple audio electronics | 15% |
| Analog-to-digital conversion and basic signal processing | 10% |
| Digital Audio Workstations: recording, editing, and mixing | 20% |
| Creating sound components for artworks | 10% |
| Exhibition practices: preparing and installing sound works | 15% |
| Troubleshooting and maintaining sound equipment | 10% |
| Total | 100% |
Projects · Workshops · Sites
PROJECTS
If sound, then what?
If what, then sound?
Make a relationship.
WORKSHOPS
- BUILDING A SPEAKER, CID MAKERSPACE
- CONTACT MIC, CID MAKERSPACE
- SIMPLE CIRCUIT + OSCILLATOR, CID MAKERSPACE
DÉRIVES / SOUNDWALKS
- ACOUSTIC ECOLOGY OF NEWMAN LIBRARY STAIRWELL
- DRILLFIELD / SOLITUDE / SMITHFIELD XC
- DUCKPOND / NEW DORM CONSTRUCTION SITE
FIELD SITES
- PERFORM STUDIO AT CFA
- PRIVATE ARTIST TALK AT CFA GALLERIES
- HYDROPHONE / FIELD RECORDERS
Calendar
Fall 2026 · general course arc. Full weekly detail lives on Canvas.
CANVAS // TECHNICAL
Here are a bunch of technical things. Learn them all.
Mastery checks may be taken repeatedly until 100%.
The point is eventual competency, not getting it right the first time.
Some of the technical concepts you'll be studying are:
Wave Physics: frequency, amplitude, wavelength, phase, modulation, interference, harmonics, resonance.
Acoustics: reflection, absorption, diffusion, reverberation, standing waves, room modes, sound pressure, decibels.
Electronics: voltage, current, resistance, Ohm's law, oscillator, resistor, capacitor, transistor, signal flow, grounding.
Safety: sound pressure and hearing protection, soldering, electricity, ladders, lasers, tools, installation.
Digital: analog-to-digital conversion, sample rate, bit depth, file types, compression, channels, transfer, storage.
Field: microphones, pickup patterns, recorders, gain, clipping, monitoring, placement, handling, best practices.
Systems: transducers, speakers, amplification, cables, connectors, feedback, troubleshooting.
Policy
1. Attendance
What happens in this class does not happen anyplace else IN THE WORLD.
It is special.
You are in this circle for 155 minutes every Tuesday and Thursday from 3:30 to 5:25.
Being here means not being anywhere else.
Not on your phone, laptop, or the lab machines unless directed.
Not asleep or in a dissociative fugue state.
Not in another class.
Not with your infatuations.
Not in your earbuds.
And certainly NOT LATE.
Absences #1–4 are excused without penalty.
Absence # 5 results in a 10% letter grade deduction.
Absence # 6 is an additional 10% letter grade deduction and is the final allowed absence before automatic failure of the course.
Absence # 7 results in automatic failure of the course.
• Being ready and on time shows respect for yourself, your peers, and maybe the instructor.
• Arrive a few minutes early to settle in.
• Do not interrupt the circle by coming in late.
We will break at the 65th minute for 5 minutes.
At which point, you can reclaim some hits of cheap dopamine, or if you are late, you may enter at that time.
If you miss this class without telling me in advance, I will assume you don't care about the sound circle, me, and my teachings.
Thinking of skipping critique? Don't.
A sharp critique is never about the artist.
However, missing critiques without a good reason suggests hubris, or worse, a rejection of your peers who are all participating.
Full recovery from this transgression is impossible.
You cannot make up a critique.
2. Grades
Your grade is built from three things.
F means you weren't around enough.
It was an attendance issue. You were either never here or you missed your 7th class.
D and above
Lived experience teaches much harder lessons in far more brutal and consequential contexts and does not award grades.
Everyone who attends in full, turns in their work, and participates will be awarded at least the lowest passing grade.*
*This requires perfect attendance to accomplish.
Falling short of perfection is not worth quitting, self-hatred, recrimination, or judgment.
If you can manage the commitments asked of you, do us both a kindness and try putting the grade anxiety on the back burner, please.
That said, effort is another word for love.
ON GETTING AN "A+"
Take an honest interest in the content and each other, commit to the sound circle, do the research and readings, write, speak, and make in your own voice, hold space for others, be true to your own sound. Show up with a lot of effort in your creative projects, and you will maybe get that A+ you've been dreaming of!*
*Probably not, though; Sound Art is not so easy, and VT doesn't allow A+'s.
Also, a grade cannot reflect the multitudes that you are.
Grades have never been, and never will be, the actual measurement of your actual potential.
They are punitive measures designed to motivate you to improve.
At best, grades reflect accuracy for mastery or, in this case, clarity of concept, effort, or a snapshot of proficiency.
3. Artificial Intelligences
As much as I would love for your AI companions to join us, they aren't paying tuition.
Also, I love AI; it definitely has its place. I use it a lot.
This is one of those classes where it's all about the analog meatsack.
No creative output, deliverable, or submission evaluated in or for this class at any level, no matter how tangential, can be generated in any part by an LLM. Otherwise, it is GAME OVER.
4. Academic Integrity // Freedom of Choice
Every time a creative job is lost to AI, a CEO gets its wings.
Commercial AI is like Pac-Man, doubling in size every time it eats a pellet.
That pellet is a creative job. Eventually, after enough pellets, it eats the whole world, leaving the ghosts without a place to haunt.
You can choose to be part of this problem or part of a completely different problem.
That other problem is your business.
Per the honor code, as a Hokie, it is our collective task to screen for lapses in imagination and integrity.
Hokies feed on excellence, and we have refined palates. Don't cheat.
5. Office Hours
By appointment.
Email me and we'll find a time.
duffles@vt.edu
6. Academic Accommodations
The sound circle should be a circle everyone can actually get into.
Virginia Tech welcomes students with disabilities into the University's educational programs. If you anticipate or experience academic barriers that may be due to disability — including but not limited to ADHD, chronic or temporary medical conditions, deaf or hard of hearing, learning disability, mental health, or vision impairment — please contact Services for Students with Disabilities (540-231-3788, ssd@vt.edu, ssd.vt.edu). If you have an SSD accommodation letter, please meet with me privately, as early in the semester as possible, to discuss your accommodations. You'll need to give me reasonable notice to implement them — generally 5 business days, and 10 business days for final exams.
Open your ears more every day. Do not stop until it is over.